The New York Times Book Review - Lincoln Caplan
By concentrating on the history of [the 13th, 14th, and 15th] amendments, Foner makes an outstanding scholarly contribution, showing how they helped fulfill the Constitution's democratic promise while intensifying the contest over its meaning…Foner's authority and magnetism as a Bancroft- and Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar stem partly from his conviction that history is neither primarily about the past nor, as he put it in Who Owns History (2002), "simply a series of myths and inventions." The Second Founding reveals how an exemplary historian can plumb The Congressional Globe and other primary sources to capture the ideas and intentions of those who shaped the Civil War amendments. The result is scholarship that is disciplined, powerful and moving.
Publishers Weekly
06/24/2019
In this lucid legal history and political manifesto, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Foner (The Fiery Trial) explores how the “Reconstruction amendments”—the 13th, 14th, and 15th, which abolished slavery, granted birthright citizenship, and acknowledged black men’s political rights—have been interpreted over the past century and a half. Foner begins with Congressional debates immediately after the Civil War about what “freedom” could and should mean in the context of the liberation of hundreds of thousands of slaves. Most relevantly for today, Foner depicts the disagreement among both Democrats and Republicans about who should have, and be allowed to use, the right to vote. He points out that, as recently as 2013, the Supreme Court has failed to use the 15th Amendment to oppose state laws that, while not specifically mentioning ethnicity or race, make it difficult for nonwhite citizens to vote, and has refused to bar discriminatory practices of private citizens, in seeming contradiction to the 14th Amendment. In Foner’s view, the current moment represents a “retreat from racial equality,” but the rights promised in these amendments also remain “viable alternatives.” Readers invested in social equality will find Foner’s guarded optimism about the possibility of judicial activism in this area inspiring, and both casual readers and those well-versed in American legal history will benefit from his clear prose and insightful exploration of constitutional history. (Sept.)
New York Review of Books - James Oakes
"As the dean of Reconstruction studies, Foner is the ideal scholar to produce a history of the three amendments added to the Constitution during the period—amendments so powerful as to justify the book’s title."
Washington Examiner - W. Fitzhugh Brundage
"In this moment, indeed in any, Eric Foner’s new book is uncommonly valuable."
Boston Globe - David M. Shribman
"Brisk but far-reaching.… [C]opies of this book should be spread around the capital, because the battles of contemporary Washington are but a second act to the struggles prompted by Foner’s Second Founding."
Lincoln Caplan
"Disciplined, powerful and moving.… [An] important book."
John Fabian Witt
"Lucid and succinct."
Nation - Michael Kazin
"The Second Founding… demonstrates [Foner’s] talent at unearthing insights about the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, in particular how Americans defined and acted on the ideals of freedom and democracy.… [He writes] in what another eminent historian, Christopher Lasch, called ‘plain style’: direct and vivid prose without a trace of specialized language, which anyone with a passing interest in the subject can read, learn from, and enjoy."
David W. Blight
"Eric Foner has done it again: his concise, superbly researched, beautifully written history of the Civil War amendments chronicles a revolution in law and moral sensibility."
New York Times - Adam Liptak
"Sometimes a book makes you reconsider a subject you’ve studied all of your adult life."
Times Literary Supplement - Amy Murrell Taylor
"[The Second Founding] should land on the desk of every federal jurist.… [It] presents a sobering picture of the use and misuse of history in legal battles over race. But it is hopeful too. Change is possible with more truthful and expansive historical knowledge."
New York Times - Henry Louis Gates Jr.
"Few reading experiences on the history of race in America have been as profound for me as the works of Eric Foner."
Minneapolis Star Tribune - Hamilton Cain
"With The Second Founding, Foner offers a taut, absorbing companion piece to his magisterial Reconstruction, published three decades ago."
Martha Minow
"How are voter suppression, mass incarceration, and jeopardy to the American-born children of undocumented immigrants possible in the land of the free? Eric Foner brings his masterful knowledge of Reconstruction to illuminate the transformative constitutional amendments following the Civil War, and powerfully conveys the ongoing struggles over their meaning."
Wall Street Journal - Fergus M. Bordewich
"Mr. Foner makes his case with brio and erudition."
Kirkus Reviews
2019-06-09
Schoolchildren learn that the Constitution did not solve the slavery question. That required the Civil War and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, which dramatically altered how we are governed. This engrossing scholarly history recounts how it happened.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Foner (Emeritus, History/Columbia Univ.; Battle for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History, 2017, etc.) reminds readers that the Emancipation Proclamation freed some slaves, and the 1865 surrender of Confederate armies freed none. Abolition required the 13th Amendment. Abraham Lincoln stayed neutral as the 1864 Congress debated it. He was in a tight presidential race, and supporting black rights was not a vote-getter. Initially, the amendment failed, with most Northern Democrats opposed, warning that it would lead to black voting and interracial marriage. After the election, in which Republicans increased their majority, it passed. Soon, it became apparent that Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, a vehement racist, was encouraging white supremacists to form governments in former Confederate states. In December 1865, Congress refused to admit their representatives and proposed what became the 14th and 15th amendments. The 14th, the longest in the Constitution, was meant to "establish the rights of the freed people and all Americans; create a uniform definition of citizenship; outline a way back into the union for seceded states; limit the political influence of leading Confederates; contribute to the nation-building process catalyzed by the Civil War; and serve as a political platform that would enable the Republican Party to retain its hold on power." The 15th, which prohibited denying voting rights based on race, was controversial even in the North. No congressional Democrat voted for it, and post-Reconstruction Southern governments had no trouble disenfranchising blacks. Foner emphasizes that these revolutionary amendments were poorly drawn, difficult to enforce, and not widely popular among whites. Nearly a century passed before the protection of due process, individual rights, and racial equality won over the courts and many, if not all, whites.
A convincing but definitely not uplifting account of how Reconstruction drastically changed our Constitution.
